Podcast #4 - Max Barker

Wait Long By The River

Max Barker - Punk theatre facilitator on finding creative work wherever you happen to be, the punk aesthetic as creative bravery, and making dramatic impro

"I've travelled around the world making theatre with different groups of people... It's what gives my life direction and meaning so I can find ways to do that, I don't need to have any training, I don't need to have any money, I don't need any kind of validation, I'll just keep doing it. It's what I believed when I was 17 and I still believe it now."

Max Barker found punk as a teenager and the ethos has never left him. It's in his work as a director, as a facilitator, and as a teacher, in community theatre and music and poetry slams.

In this show Max runs us through what happens when you trust your desire to make art and you let your life follow along alongside. He has the time of his life down and out in a rundown sharehouse. He talks his way into teaching theatre to classes in Laos, Thailand and the Philippines - in between suspicious car trips with corrupt cops. He talks about the transition from breakfast beers to camomile tea, and how that still feels tuned in to his punk soul.

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